Implementing the Sustainable Development Goals into concrete national and local action involves tackling important trade-offs between different goals and targets, but also opens the possibilities to benefit from potential synergies between them. A first part of the lecture discusses the development of sustainability principles and related institutions and actors at the intersection of water and climate sectors in the last 30 years, starting with the Rio Declaration on the Environment and Development, as well as the Dublin Statement on Water and Sustainable Development in 1992. A second part of the lecture presents and discusses important interactions, including trade-offs and synergies, between SDGs 6 (water) and 13 (climate), based on relevant reports and the recent literature on SDG interactions. A third part of the lecture presents three case studies in mountain regions in Bolivia, Ecuador and Switzerland. The three case studies illustrate how actors and institutions have tackled the interactions between water- and climate-related SDGs. More specifically, we ask what types of innovative governance arrangements (policies, institutions, actors) local municipalities are using to sustainably govern water and climate issues.